DOMESTIC STRIFE FROM THE CITY COUNCIL

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

A Chicago City Council committee this week approved a resolution that would allow a city worker to take a three-day paid leave of absence in the event of the death of the worker's "domestic partner." That is the same paid leave a worker can take when a spouse, child or other immediate family member dies.

The sponsors acknowledge the resolution is the first step toward providing more extensive benefits like health care and pension payments for the partners of unmarried city workers.

The council is venturing into murky waters with this bid-waters that probably are over its head.

The emotional tug of the resolution is sincere. The death of a live-in partner is traumatic in or out of a marriage. While heterosexual couples at least have the choice of getting married, gay and lesbian couples do not. State law doesn't recognize marriages of same-sex couples, so their partnerships can't achieve the same legal standing.

But the attempt to create legal standing for a non-marriage relationship is fraught with legal problems and could pose considerable financial liabilities for the city.

For starters, there is the language of the resolution: "Domestic partners are defined as two persons, regardless of their gender, who have a close personal relationship, sharing the same regular and permanent residence for at least six months; are each 18 years of age or older, not married to anyone, not related by blood closer than would bar marriage in the State of Illinois, and are each other's sole domestic partner, responsible for each other's common welfare and jointly sharing their financial responsibilities."

So the definition of a "domestic partner" could turn on the definition of "close personal relationship." For that, the courts might have to turn to the "Cathy" comic strip for direction.

There is a reason that "POSSLQs" and "Significant Others" and like terms are matters of social fashion and not of law. They are what people make of them, and people make of them something a little different each day. By contrast, 114 pages of Illinois law defines marriage and families and the rights and responsibilities of spouses and their children.

Marriage carries deep obligations and legal and moral responsibilities and, by custom and by law, it confers certain benefits on the wife and husband. If the Illinois legislature wants to tackle a new definition of marriage, that's within its authority.

But for the City Council to attempt to define and sanction the "domestic partner" is risky business, far beyond its mission.